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Learn how to improve your website's organic search ranking through effective internal and external linking strategies. This course covers topics such as search engine ranking factors, creating better internal and external links, and using tools for link building.
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Search engine optimization: linking strategies December 17, 2007 Content Quality Council: Schema and terminology work group
A few instructions Before the session: • Shut down e-mail and Sametime. • Run the Centra Audio Wizard. During the session: • Raise your hand when you want to speak. • Use the Feedback button to send messages to the facilitator. • Participate and interact with the class. 3
Body language in Centra Press these buttons on your toolbar to… • Raise your hand when you want to speak. • When called upon and given a microphone, press and hold the Ctrl key and speak clearly; release the Ctrl key when you are finished. • Answer "yes or no" questions. • Show amusement or approval. • Let us know you are temporarily away. 4
What if… You get disconnected from Centra? • Click the link in your confirmation e-mail to return. • Shut down all browser windows and click the link. • Contact Learner Support: • By telephone: 1 888-426-0014 (U.S. and Canada), T/L 888-7000, or +1 404-238-7000 (international) • By e-mail or Notes: edhelp@us.ibm.com or EDHELP/ATLANTA/Contr/IBM@IBMUS Your instructor gets disconnected? • Wait until the instructor returns. • Check Text Chat for updates from Learner Support. • Check for new mail from Learner Support or your instructor in case he or she cannot return. The Centra server is unavailable? Check for new mail from Learner Support or your instructor for information about how to proceed. 5
About this course This course: • Helps authors, editors, terminologists, strategists, site owners and others improve their approach to internal and external linking. • Focuses on organic search—how a step-by-step link building program can get trusted, relevant sites to link to your site. It does not address paid search—how ibm.com pays for position on external search engines. • Is the third in a series of courses about search engine optimization. • Tools like We Build Pages help you improve your site’s linking tactics and the organic search ranking on your pages. 7
Course outline • How search engines determine the ranking of Web sites in search results • Why search engines value internal and external links • How to create better internal links • How to create better external links • Some tools you can use for building links 8
How do search engines determine the ranking of Web sites in search results? 9
Relevance and page rank • Google relies on two main factors to determine where links to your pages end up on an organic search-results page: • Relevance: How closely the keywords on a Web page match the keywords a user enters into a search field. Optimizing pages for relevance is the subject of the Organic Search Authoring Basics course. • Page rank: Page Rank is a function of how the page is related to other pages within your site and on the Web. The more your page is interwoven into other relevant pages within your site and around the Web, the higher it is ranked by Google. • This course covers how to improve your page rank by cultivating relationships with trusted internal and external sources on the Web and persuading them to link to your pages. 11
Search engines evaluate page rank in four ways • Link quantity: How many links are there in and out of your pages? • Link quality: How highly do the pages that link to your pages rank? • Anchor text: How meaningful is the text within links to and from your pages? • Link relevance: How closely related are the pages that link to your page? 12
Why search engines value external links • Every link to your page is a vote for its quality. • Organic search engines tally the votes when they decide which pages possess the highest page rank. • This link on KnowledgeStorm.com drives traffic to the IBM page and increases its page rank. 14
Why search engines value internal links • Links to your page within ibm.com indicate that your page is an important element of the whole site. • Unlike external links, you control how you use internal links. • Effective internal linking not only affects ranking, but also page navigation, usability and customer satisfaction. • The goal of internal links is to facilitate navigation and usability for spiders and visitors. • This high-performance template enables descriptive anchor links in the content space. 15
Outbound internal links • An outbound internal linkis a hyperlink that points to another page inside the same domain. 17
Creating better outbound internal links • Use descriptive anchor text to make your links more relevant to your users, and include keywords. • Vary anchor text to help target long-tail keyword phrases. • Perform synonym search by typing “~” and your keyword within the Google search field. • Use automated tools to help you locate related words: http://www.gorank.com/seotools/ontology/ • Build pages with links within the content space area. • Including links within the content space reinforces theme and category. • Use text links. Image links have a diminished search engine optimization (SEO) value. • Avoid using pop-up windows in links. • Search engines typically do not index pages that open in a pop-up window. • Maintain your links and ensure they are in working order. 18
Inbound internal links • An inbound internal link is a hyperlink that points to your page from another page in the same domain. 19
Creating better inbound internal links • Ensure that all links progress through the hierarchy of your site or content. • Avoid link orphans or navigation dead ends. • Create a link structure to ensure that you do not dilute URL strength. • If possible, avoid redirects and IBM SurfAid™ tracking codes in your URLs that point to your target page. • Use consistent URLs throughout the user experience. • For large, Eclipse-based sites, create a site map page with links to all the topics. • Take advantage of IBM peer organizations to create links back to your site from internal sources. 20
Creating internal linking opportunities • Leverage linking possibilities from the home-page content and other home page main categories. • Place important links above the fold (where the user can see them) or in related links. • Leverage internal corporate blogs, wikis, and forums by ensuring that their owners link back to your page. • Find opportune internal pages with the most back links. • Use Yahoo Site Explorer http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com (more about this tool later in the course). 21
Quick quiz Use the Centra text tool to enter your answers on this screen. • What are the two main factors Google relies on to determine where links to your pages end up in search results? • What’s the difference between an outbound internal link and an inbound internal link? • Which of the following is not a good way to create internal links? Leveraging internal blogs and wikisPlacing links below the fold Linking to pages with many back links Creating links from home-page main categories 22
Outbound external links • An outbound external link is a link to a page outside the same domain. • PartnerWorld links directly to stories on trusted sites about IBM Business Partner relationships. This is a captured opportunity. 24
Creating better outbound external links • Creating outbound links to trusted sites increases page rank. • Link out to such trusted authorities as industry associations, research organizations, nonprofit sites, industry news sites and industry journals. • By linking out to authority Web sites, it helps you become a “hub” authority Web site. • By creating a comprehensive list of resources on a topic, other sites will want to link to it. • Trusted authorities have these properties: • Unique content • Inbound links from other authority sites • Outbound links to authority sites • A long history of authority 25
Choosing outbound external link targets • When linking out to third-party external sites, consider these questions: • Is the site credible? • Is the content relevant to your page? • Does the site approve of your link? • Does the external site have privacy or legal statements? • If you answer “yes” to these questions, it is better to link to their site than get permission to copy the contents. • All these industry news links copy content from trusted sources rather than linking directly to those sites. This is a missed opportunity. 26
Inbound external links • An inbound external link is a link from a page outside the current domain into the Web site. • The IBM page on the SAS.com partner site contains no direct links to IBM content. This is a missed opportunity. 27
Building on existing relationships IBM has an extensive network of existing relationships with: • IBM Public Relations (PR) • Work with PR reps to get your sites linked in their press releases. These links often end up in trade publication sites. • Business Partners • Independent software vendors (ISVs) • Systems Integrators (SIs) • Resellers • Industry events • IBM sponsors many conferences and expos, which have highly credible sites. • Educational institutions • Leverage co-op opportunities to get universities to link to IBM content. • Trade associations • Encourage team members to join and participate in trade groups, which have credible sites. • Content aggregators • Sites like TechRepublic are always looking for good content to link to. • Existing clients • Case studies are an excellent way to get customers to link to your pages. 28
Capturing social media opportunities • Social media, or Web 2.0, sites are the fastest growing source of external links on the Web. Build these tactics into your back-link plans: • Participate in forums. • Promote new resources, content or products to attract external links. • Encourage user reviews. • Provide a channel for surfacing and addressing positives and negatives. • Provide an interactive opportunity to have users rate offerings. • Interview clients or industry experts. • Provide self-promoting and viral opportunities. • Encourage additional links from interviewee blogs and back links to you. 29
Capturing social media opportunities (continued) • Participate in corporate blogs and wikis: • Submit your corporate blog to blog directories such as blogsflux.com. • Use RSS feeds and the track-back blog function. • Work collaboratively with a wiki such as Wikipedia. The IBM page at Wikipedia is an excellent place to promote your offerings and create external links in the process. Remember to only state facts here, do not use promotional language or sell IBM offerings. 30
Finding new external link partners • Find the top results for your keywords or related words and request links from “good fit” sites. • Sites might contain resource directories where you can discover additional potential back-link partners. • Search quality directories such as DMOZ and Yahoo. • Find authority sites on human-edited directories by using commands such as site:.edu. • Research your competitor’s back links. • Determine who is linking to them and what keywords they employ in their anchor text. • This Web search netted several potential link partners, including Wikipedia, xml.com, SOA, ZDNet, and Oracle. 31
Working with potential external-link partners • Creating new back-link opportunities requires old-fashioned relationship marketing tactics: • Send a personal e-mail. • Start a conversation in the first e-mail. • Include the person's name. • Make the subject line unique. • Find something unique about their site. • Keep e-mails short and to the point. • Offer an incentive. • Provide additional contact information (phone number). • Ask for a link to a page that will benefit their users. • In this sample e-mail to the editor-in-chief of ZDNet, we use relationship marketing tactics to begin developing a relationship that we hope will result in a link to the ibm.com/soa site. 32
Auditing back-link partners • Perform an audit to check your current back-link partners and then determine if they are using correct anchor text and URLs. • Determine which URL is ranking higher (the vanity or target). • Verify that the desired URL is being used by the back-link partner. • Verify that the anchor text is using the relevant keyword. • Contact the back-link partners to make any necessary changes to the URL or anchor text. • Perform a link audit of your page or site. (Note: Any method is just an estimate.) • Type http://link:urlin the Google search barto find out which pages in the Google index are linking to your page. Or try Yahoo Site Explorer: https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/ 33
Preventing spam inflation • Part of the Google algorithm checks sites for signs of unethical behavior. If it determines that your site uses these techniques, it will not be indexed. The following tips will help you avoid being blacklisted by search engines: • Be wary of obtaining too many back links from sites on the same Class C IP address. Search engines think you’re creating a link farm when you do this. • Use the tool found at http://www.ip-report.com to check for Class C IPs. • Avoid link-building software that automates e-mailing back-link requests to other site owners. • Avoid the auto-create features and just use the software to track e-mails. • Only obtain up to two high-quality back links per week. 34
Working with sites that use the Nofollow attribute • The Nofollow attribute command was originally used to prevent blog comment spam. • # <a href="http://www.ibm.com" rel="nofollow">IBM</a> • Search engines will still index, traffic will be sent, but no “link juice” will flow back to the site. • Don't ignore sites that use the Nofollow attribute because it might help you gain secondary back links. • To find page links that use the NoFollow attribute, use the FireFox Search StatusTool: http://www.quirk.biz/searchstatus • The SearchStatus plug-in sits in the lower right corner of FireFox. It enables you to optimize back-link partners and determine Nofollow links. 35
Quick quiz Use the Centra text tool to enter your answers on this screen. • What is a back-link partner? • List a few sources of back-link partners: • What are some common pitfalls in link development? 36
Using Yahoo Site Explorer Yahoo Site Explorer can help you create internal linking opportunities and audit back-link partners for external links. • http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com • Type site:<yourdomain>.com (for example site:ibm.com)and it will provide pages with most back links in descending order. • Use this information to audit back-link partners and identify potential problem links. 38
Using Google Rankings to assist in link building • Google Rankings is the most useful tool in determining your page rank and the page ranks of your back-link partners. • Check Google Rankings: http://www.googlerankings.com/ (The Google API is required.) • Potential third-party sites to target for links to your site should have these qualities: • A high Google page rank (six or above) • Few outbound links • Relevant to your page topic • Keyword included in the link text 39
Using Yahoo Hub to assist in back-link auditing Yahoo Hub Finder can help you target your competitors’ back-link partners. • http://www.linkhounds.com/hub-finder/hubfinder.php • Type link:URL in the search bar to find all the pages that are linking to your page. • Type in a keyword and see what comes up in the top 10, and then see which sites link to them. • For example, type the keyword “Infrastructure security” and see who is in the top 10 sites on the results page. • Then, check back links coming to them and compile a list of sites you would want to link to your site. • The tool is based on the keywords that you have identified as important to your page rankings. 40
Using SEOElite to assist in step-by-step link building • SEOElite is a paid tool that enables you to analyze optimized sites for their keyword usage and replicate it. • http://www.seoelite.com/acceptance-form-b.htm • Use SEOElite to research competitors and potential link partners: 1. Search for well-optimized sites for a particular keyword. 2. Analyze keyword usage by other third-party sites using allinanchor, allintitle or allintext. 3. Find relevant PR link partners. 4. Analyze back links to the IBM page. • SEOElite is a sophisticated tool for analyzing all keyword-based programs. 41
Exploring no-cost tools for the site owner • See SEO Google Gadgets for link analysis, competitive analysis, and keyword research: http://tools.seobook.com/google-gadgets/ • See the back links you have in common with your competitors. Use Common Link Finder, located at http://www.randycullom.com/common_link.php • Use Backlink Builder, located at http://www.webconfs.com/backlink-builder.php • This tools searches for Web sites of the theme you specify that contain key phrases such as "Add link", "Add site", "Add URL", "Add URL", "Submit URL", and "Add Article". Most of the results could be quality potential back links. 42
Exploring more no-cost tools for the site owner • To check back links, use Hub Finder:http://www.linkhounds.com/hub-finder/hubfinder.php • This tool can be used to check back links to you and competitors and find those that you have in common. It also supports the Google API and allows you to export the results as a comma-separated value list for further analysis. • To build relevant PR links on demand, use Underground Link Building: http://www.undergroundlinkbuilding.com/?gclid=CP7Z_Ki30o4CFQUsPAodXDZ6-Q • To show what anchor text is linking into a page or site, use Back Link Analyzer: http://tools.seobook.com/backlink-analyzer/ • To check your page rank, back links and much more, use Xinu: http://www.xinureturns.com/ • To check for link popularity, go to: http:www.linkpopularity.com 43
Thank you! Great job! 44
Search COE wiki and Content Quality wiki • Visit these IBM sites to view the most-current search engine optimization information and audio files. • ibm.com Content Standards site: • http://w3.ibm.com/standards/internet/writing/ • Content Quality wiki: https://w3.webahead.ibm.com/w3ki/display/ContentQuality/2.+Schema+and+terminology • Search Center of Excellence (COE): http://w3.webahead.ibm.com/w3ki/display/SEM/Search+Engine+Marketing 45
